


Service

by TolkienGirl



Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [290]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Curufin/Nora references, Flashbacks, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Mithrim, Mollie - Freeform, Mollie deserves better, None happens in the fic to be clear, Other, POV Alternating, Scheming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:01:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26098306
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TolkienGirl/pseuds/TolkienGirl
Summary: “You owe my family your life,” Curufin said coldly. “Time to throw a coin or so at the price of ours.”
Relationships: Curufin | Curufinwë & Nerdanel, Curufin | Curufinwë & Original Female Characters, Curufin | Curufinwë/Original Female Characters
Series: All That Glitters Gold Rush!AU: The Full Series [290]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1300685
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13





	Service

Curufin could see her through the rushes, bent at the waist, pulling up roots.

“Mother,” he said. “What are you doing?”

“Ah, I did not see you there,” said Mother. She laid her muddy-rooted reeds in a flat basket, one that she herself had woven with the dried, flat leaves of last summer’s crop.

Curufin’s eyes were made uneasy by the sun, even as he tried to study the basket, and by association, Mother. It was so rare that he spoke to her alone. He sometimes thought, in moments such as these,

_Now you shall have to show me whether you are vexed, even when I have done nothing, because nobody will be able to hide you._

“Mollie, isn’t it?”

She feared this brother of Amras’ next most to Celegorm. Of late, he had taken up with Nora, her tormentor, who chased her from the common spaces, or tasked her with the hardest chores. Mollie knew this not because she spent much time in the fort, but because Nora had once led him outside the walls, and into the stable, of an afternoon when the rest were too busy to observe. Mollie had run from the familiar sounds, quickly finished though they were, and cried herself to sleep that night.

She had, of course, told no one. Amras remained her advocate and friend, but of late, the hubbub at Mithrim had made it seem really wrong to rely on him.

Child as he was; child as she had never been.

Curufin was not a child, either. Mollie needed no single sight nor sound to tell her that. He reminded her of some of the sunburnt youths who came west, eager to prove themselves to older, harder men. She had been good proving ground. Curufin, a memory, made her shrink within herself. She was afraid that he would try to claim _her_ , to offer some slight or some praise to Nora.

She said, in this moment, in answer to her own name,

“Yes.”

“You want to be useful, don’t you, Mollie?”

“Would you like to help me?” Mother asked, and Curufin wanted to feel the muddy rushes in his hands, and he wanted to tuck himself against her skirts, as the twins still did when thunder came. He wanted all those things with one fierce hand—but with the other, he held himself back, just as valiantly. He imagined the fingers of his left stiffening to strike those of his right.

 _You mustn’t—you mustn’t let her_ win _._

He could admit to himself that he understood little what he even meant by _winning_. He was only very certain that those who were satisfied, and sure, were soon gone.

He was nine years old.

“Not for your wares,” Curufin said, with a sneer.

Breath rushed back to Mollie, she was so very relieved. “Oh…what then?”

He ran a hand through his hair. His lips stitched themselves together, then unstitched themselves. A boy after all, and quite torn by thought, Mollie realized. He was cleverer than she would ever be, but there was a kinship of loss and cunning between them.

It made her fear him more.

“You owe my family your life,” Curufin said coldly. “Time to throw a coin or so at the price of ours.”

She did not understand him.

He smiled. She did not understand that either. “The town,” he said. “The trading outpost. You used to work there, didn’t you?”

She felt as if he saw only her missing finger, then. She felt as if he knew.

“Yes.”

“Go back,” he said. “I’ll cover for you, and let you in the gates again. But I want information. Word of…the regiments. Whoever dispatches them. And where any sort of trouble is coming next. Do you see, Mollie? I want to know _everything_.”

“I’m tired,” Curufin said. “May I help another time?”

Mother sighed. Even laughed a little. He did not like that laugh; it sounded so far above him. “Very well,” she said. “Go your own way.”


End file.
